by Patrick Boniface

Created on: November 27, 2008

I doubt that there is a single person on the planet, well maybe there is some poor soul in Tibet that has not heard Layla with the wonderful guitar solo and thumping bass beat. Then there are the words of longing, heartbreak and ultimately unsatisfied love. The song is a classic, but where did Layla come into it, after all wasn't it a song about the beautiful Patti Boyd?

The song was indeed about Eric Clapton's love for former Beatle George Harrison's wife but the name Layla goes back much further than a British 20th century guitar hero's longing for a woman. It goes back into the mist of time to Persia and the classical poet Nezami who wrote the story of Layla and Majnum. At the time that Eric Clapton was going through the mill with Patti Boyd he spoke frequently with his friend Ian Dallas who was converting to Islam at the time and he told Clapton the story, inspring him to put the classical fable to song but with a modern day twist. The result was a classic hit, but had nothing much to do with the madness that drove Layla and Majnum.
Layla was a moon princess who against her wishes was married to someone her father and her society wanted her to be with. She, however, wanted another man. This lover becomes so enraged by his misfortune that he went insane through the jealousy and hence inspired the name of The Madness of Layla.
You can see how Eric Clapton drew parralels to his own life at the time. The story has inspired different cultures with their own derivations of the basic message in Arabic it is known as Qays and Layla, in Persian Leyli and Madjnun and in classical Turkey, one of the power houses of the ancient world the story became known as Leyla ile Mecnum.
In each of the tellings the story is much the same a young poet called Qays ibn al-Mulawwah ibn Muzahim used his words to woo Layla. When he asked her to marry him, the girl's father refused. The poet left the tribal camp and fled into the desert, where he wandered aimlessly writing poetry in the sand with a stick, only to watch it being blown away by the winds.
Layla married another man and moved to Iraq and later died. When they found Qays dead in the wilderness in AD 668. Amongst his writings was

"I pass by these walls, the walls of Layla
And I kiss this wall and that wall
It's not Love of the houses that has taken my heart
But of the One who dwells in those houses"

At the end of all the stories is Majnun Layla, which translates as Driven mad by Layla', today the same can be said by any radio disc jockey when asked to play the song again on request shows.

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